Tom Hannifan recently appeared as a guest on the True Heels BTR show for an in-depth interview covering all things pro wrestling and IMPACT.
During the discussion, the pro wrestling commentator reflected back on what he described as an extremely emotional debut with IMPACT Wrestling.
Featured below are some of the highlights.
On his debut with IMPACT at last year’s Hard To Kill pay-per-view: “Debuting at last year’s Hard To Kill was extremely emotional. I was unsure what the landscape of IMPACT was gonna be like. I knew I’d have a lot of familiar faces around and some new faces as well, so it was nerve-racking. This year, it was like, ‘Oh this is not, you know like old hat or anything, but it’s like we’ve been here before, but let’s just kill it.’ To open and close the show, kinda like you said we book-ended the show so well with Bully Ray and Alexander, and then Mickie James and Jordynne Grace, you can’t ask for a better show. Then everybody else on the show just absolutely brought their A game, so I said a moment ago, but when IMPACT Wrestling is live, they don’t miss. It’s the best.”
On his time with Matt Rehwoldt in WWE, and how he’s so happy to have him as his co-commentator in IMPACT: “It’s been a long road because it’s funny just how things work out. In WWE, he was on the heels of the whole Rusev angle and wasn’t really doing much. I remember speaking to Michael Cole and a bunch of other people saying, ‘Hey you know Matt can talk, Aiden can talk’. At the time, Aiden English, and they gave him an opportunity on 205 Live, and eventually he and I did NXT UK together as well. So, fast forward a number of years and we’re both in IMPACT Wrestling, my former co-host D-Lo Brown was transitioning into a strictly an off-camera and backstage role, so it was like, ‘Okay, who’s gonna be the new color commentator?’ I was like, well similar situation, Matthew was just off the heels of what happened ironically at Hard To Kill 2022 of he had been backing up Deonna Purrazzo and they were creatively moving in a different direction. I was like, ‘Well if he’s available, I already know what he’s like and it would be great to work with him’. So we did a taping towards the end of January ’22 in Fort Lauderdale and it was his first time doing commentary in about two years so for him, it was a re-learning experience and for me, it was kinda me getting back in the groove a little bit because I had still had six months away from wrestling. So I had D-Lo for literally one night, and then I think I worked with a dozen partners the night after. Then fast forward a handful of weeks, and I’m working with Rehwoldt again.”
Check out the complete Tom Hannifan interview via the YouTube player embedded below. H/T to Fightful.com for transcribing the above quotes.
